QVC puts call center in Chesapeake up for sale or lease; employees to keep working from home

QVC US has put its 52,911-square-foot Chesapeake call center on the market. Its employees will work from home permanently.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed Qurate Retail Group, which owns QVC, to rapidly shift to a work-from-home model, something that was in the works before the global health crisis that led to business closures and social distancing rules. The company’s entire U.S. Customer Service & Experience division, with few exceptions, will keep working from home indefinitely.

Qurate has about 18,000 workers across the United States. The company wouldn’t reveal how many people had worked at the Chesapeake location, saying only that a small number of on-site operations staff were affected by the shift. The company told workers about the permanent shift to work-from-home in July.

The office at 1553 River Birch Run North had once housed a large number of people. As of early 2012, the company had more than 600 part-time and full-time employees based there, with some working from home even then. By March of that year, there were 370 layoffs leaving about 300 people at the office.